More consequences
by magic or manic
Summary: I'm fascinated by the idea that Clark has been so dangerous at many times in his youth.  I find it unrealistic that people weren't scarred by things he did.  Here's a story of someone he hurt.


This time, both Kents were in the hospital. Cracked collarbone for one. Cracked femur for the other. Concussion and bruises for both.

And a new one. Lana Lang, with choke marks on her neck.

Chloe Sullivan, at her side, but looking around nervously like a jittery drug user.

And now, the man she had known much of her life was here. As usual. As always. Hulking and large, he approached, his body shaped into something diffident and harmless now, but she herself had actually seen a different pose once.

Something feral and animal. Something lustful and greedy. He had slammed her into a locker after pulling her into the empty boys locker room, and kissed her hard. She laughed without mirth as she remembered that moment. It sounded like she was writing the precursor to one of those awful alpha male romance novels where abusive behavior somehow morphs into love.

No. She didn't love him. Nor the kiss. He had drawn blood and his hands had grazed her neck. Menacing. She had feared for her life – his intent towards forcing her into other things pushed away from the terror soaked fight and flight portion of her brain.

But then someone had called him, and he had gone, with a laugh and promise to pick off where they had left off later. His very cold and dead gaze leaving her with a sense of utter hopelessness. She knew he had meant his word.

So when Clark Kent showed up at school the next time he actually went to school, and was affecting his mild-mannered 'I-feel-guilty' expression, she had tried so hard to fight from letting him know that every day she woke up wanting to vomit.

His eyes had grazed over her, and she thought she might lose control of her bodily functions then and there. Yeah. She laughed inwardly. Great for that romance novel. He burned her with a searing look and then her loins quivered in … in terror no less. And it hadn't been her … loins, that's for sure. It had been her stomach – and her intestines.

But he hadn't noticed. Hadn't seen her. Hadn't given her that apologetic look and turned stoically towards her to make his apology.

What the hell was wrong with this guy? Drugs? Psychosis? It was impossible to tell.

She had been watching his friends closely, but the only one who treated him with any level of caution was Pete Ross, and why wouldn't he? Apparently during one of Clark's bizarre rages, he had hurt his friend. Despite all that, Pete treated Clark comfortably. It was only when the bigger teen would suddenly react in rage that Pete would jump back and eye him carefully.

_Breathe in and out_, she thought as Clark finally was in front of her, his big body shaking with strong agitation. She stared up at him wondering if he remembered his almost rape of her. But his eyes were flickering all over the place and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he didn't. He was here to give those apologies to other people. Again.

Before she could say anything to him in her guise as mild-mannered hospital volunteer, Chloe Sullivan burst into the space, taking it up with her inexorable strength of personality.

"Clark," he heard her say breathlessly. The fear in Chloe's eyes was still there, but she looked at Clark searchingly, as if trying to determine if Clark was still bat-shit crazy.

"Oh, god, Chloe," he whispered out to her, and it seemed that at least Chloe didn't think Clark was dangerous any more, as she sank into his arms with what looked like comfort and relief.

"Oh god, Oh god," she saw him mutter into his friend's hair.

"It'll be okay. Remember…this was completely out of your – control, right?"

_Fucking enabler_, she thought, bitterly. Let the guy rage and ruin and then tell him it's not his fault.

"I can't afford to be out of control," he had responded with anguish in his voice. The way he tightened his arms around the small blond girl indicated that he was grappling with self loathing.

"None of that, big guy," Chloe said, stepping back. "No self pity. Come on. You have to face them before you can feel easy again."

She saw Clark's eyes and saw a deep pain. He would never feel easy. She knew that now. But still. The guy was fucking crazy.

Years later Superman came on the scene. From another planet, he helped the helpless. But she knew him as Clark Kent. And she made sure she was never helpless. Never needing rescue. Because she knew he was dangerous, and she knew one day something could trigger the memory that he still had a threat to carry out.

But sometimes you couldn't always keep those promises to yourself and when a sudden flash flood had actually pushed her car into terrifying water, she had found herself unable to avoid Superman.

He had mistaken her terror for the other source of it – almost drowning in this horrible storm. He had flown her so quickly, she couldn't say anything.

"Where should I take you," he had asked her, his voice comforting and strong. Not the trembling frightened voice of Clark visiting those he had injured, or the lust tinged voice of her would be rapist.

How do you not tell Superman where you live when he's trying to save your life?

He was a superhero. Not some guy you met in the bar that you don't trust yet.

So she told him, keeping her voice taut and strong. He had never hurt anyone the way he had hurt her and the others back home since becoming the hero. At least not in Metropolis. Her work in the hospital ensured that she knew that.

He brought her to her balcony and she laughed mirthlessly inside at the ridiculous romanticism in the gesture.

"Thank you," she said primly, hoping he would leave. "I'll take care of things from here on out." After all, there were calls to make to insurance companies.

"You sure you don't want me to take you to the hospital," he said lightly, afraid that she might be suffering from some injury. He always preferred when he could do that – leaving her here without knowing she was truly okay made him feel uneasy.

She paled at those words. Hospital. Pale broken Martha. Jonathan, grunting in pain as his shoulder was popped back into his socket. Lana. Bruises on her neck. Pale, frail and nearly dead. Even Chloe, a gash on her forehead. And the perpetrator was always Clark. Diffident, looking down, looking away, afraid of what he had done. And now she knew why. It hadn't been drugs. It had been crazy out of control super powers. His comment now about control made perfect sense. What she didn't know was where the rage came from and where it currently was.

She looked at him now unable to speak, her breath coming in ridiculous gasps that gave away her mental state.

He turned to face her, as he sensed her reaction. She had been this close to him leaving.

"No – uh – no hospital," she said. "I work there," she gave him what she hoped was a smile, but was more like a ghastly grimace. "I – I don't want to be where I work."

"Okay," he said calmly. "But please promise me you'll call 911 if you start to feel anything unusual."

Unusual. Like him? Suddenly it had hit her like a brick. Superman had beaten the crap out of his friends and family. He had choked his girl friend. He had tried to force himself on her. And now, he was standing here, acting all benevolent and benign. What the hell was he playing at, anyway?

He saw her staring at him again. And he knew he'd seen her before. She had been a timid mouse, shrinking into a corner whenever he had come into the room, and he had simply put it up to being a timid shy late blooming girl, not yet ready for the gigantic high school peers who had hit puberty before her and had towered over her.

Suddenly something hit him. A memory. An impression. Pressing her against a wall. Groping at a body not yet fully done growing and enjoying the fact that she had been afraid and unwilling. Enjoying how she made him feel like… like a god.

And – God help him if it didn't all come back in a flood of horrific memory. His parting threat to the not-yet woman standing huddled against the locker. _We'll finish this later._

No wonder she had jumped like a terrified mouse whenever he had come anywhere near her. And he hadn't done it often, because he had mistook her fear of him to be a general fear of things large and male. She never talked to any guys - not until she had grown up another year and come forth a little out of her shell.

He saw the fear in her eyes directed pin point at him and realized with a horrible burst of clarity that all along, she had known who Superman was.

"You know who I am, don't you," he asked, unable to keep this secret between them. He owed it to her to put her mind at ease.

"You're going to kill me, aren't you," she asked him back, stepping back and away fearfully even though she hated herself for it.

Diffident farm boy appeared and his voice rose up a little.

"No! I'm not – a threat to you."

Steps were taken towards her and she reared back. He paled at her reaction and stopped in his tracks. Good. She was teaching the Kryptonian a new trick. Don't approach your victims too quickly.

"I promise you. I'm not dangerous," he said quietly, remembering suddenly that he had endangered her horribly. "I wasn't – in my right mind that day," he told her. "It doesn't make it any less horrible. It doesn't diminish your right to be angry with me, or to even get justice from me… but it is the truth. And I tell it to you now, so you know that I am in my right mind now."

"You were not in your right mind a lot," she burst out, unable to not know what the hell had been wrong. "Were you allergic to corn," she asked sarcastically.

"Kryptonite, actually," he said. "Bits and pieces of a home that blew up. The red meteor rocks are infused with a kind of radiation that deactivates some of my brain function and activates others. My neural transmitters and receptors don't communicate as they should."

"Like psychosis," she suddenly realized.

"Yeah," he said, looking down.

"So – you … could go crazy at any time – if exposed to the red meteor radiation?"

"I could. But luckily enough people know about it and are equipped to stop me."

"That doesn't exactly fill me with glee," she said, unable to stop the acerbic outpouring. "You nearly raped me, _Clark_," she said. "You messed me up for a long time. I always thought you'd make good on your promise to finish it later."

He paled, remembering each time she had ducked out of his way after that horrible attack. He had been so stupid and blind. Even once when they had been forced to sit next to each other in science class, she had finally requested a visit to the nurse. He thought she had been afraid of the lab experiment ahead - dissecting a dead insect. He had found it disgusting as well and had tried to joke with her about it, but all she had done was stammer something about needing to get out, and before he knew what was happening, he had been assigned a new lab partner for the day.

"I am so sorry," he said, his voice truly full of anguish. "I had no memory of it until now. I – know that knowing what caused it and even knowing about the - fail safes put into place by people a lot smarter than I am are not good enough, but I don't have anything else to give you by way of reassurance."

"I could go to the press," she threatened him.

"And that would be your right," he said, calmly.

"But you are the press. Aren't you?"

"I work for the Daily Planet. Yes. But I don't – have anywhere near the kind of influence you might imagine to kill a story."

"You have super powers. You could kill the world," she snapped back.

He nodded. "Yes. That's true. I guess I can't – change how you feel. I can't change the bad impression I made. So I have no idea what to say to you."

"There's nothing you can say," she whispered turning away. "Actions speak louder than words."

"Yeah. I hope that moving forward, my actions towards the world will convince you I'm not a threat."

She turned back and looked at him with extreme wariness. "I guess I don't have much of a choice. For what it's worth – I won't go public with what you did."

He paused a long moment, his eyes tortured.

"Why not?"

"If people knew what you did," she told him while maintaining a much calmer demeanor than what she felt, "You would lose face. It could bring _him_ back. And then God have mercy on us all."

He was silent in the face of that.

"Point taken. I'll spend a lifetime proving your gamble here was worth it. And I'll stay out of your way. Unless of course, you're in danger."

With a polite nod, he took off into the night.

She stared after him. She hoped she'd done the right thing tonight.


End file.
